


with piranha teeth, I've been dreaming of you

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Series: Extra Thumbs for Every Crook [3]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Character Study, M/M, POV First Person, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 14:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19443304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: I imagined the beautiful deaths he had given so other men. The efficiency of his hands. The sharpness of his mind. At night I laid awake, as I hated him and wanted him in equal, excruciating measure.What perversions had he done in private? What under the sun had he not tried?Through my heart flows sleep / And the dark, heavy rain / Where the gravedigger's song is sung / You've been torturing me.





	with piranha teeth, I've been dreaming of you

**Author's Note:**

> this was a warm up but came out substantial enough that I wanted to publish it

I was a good soldier before I met Frank.

At first, he made me uneasy. I could tell from a man’s eyes and from his posture if he was armed or not. If he had a gun or something quick and silent, a grenade in a hidden pocket or a knife up a sleeve. But of course he was armed, as a man walking the wasteland alone, as everyone else that found themselves in Lacey’s bar.

It wasn’t the holsters around his hips and slung over his back, the rows of bullets and frag mines around his chest. It was his teeth - like he could easily take the pin out of a grenade, the blood out of my throat. It was his eyes - like he was an animal from the desert, a thing of the night.

I tried not to look at him when he came in, but he made a scene whenever he went. He either moved too slowly or too fast and spoke in a way that made whoever was listening feel like he was the only one in the world. He knew how to make me shiver and break out into a sweat with a long, meaningful glance.

I thought he might have been a raider but he was too _pristine_ for that. Tall, slender, with strangely immaculate skin and a well-groomed mustache above his full lips. A frumentarii? Possibly, but he loved his vices. He loved to drink, smoke, gamble, sleep around. He wore Vegas like a cologne and I could smell his aristocratic air before I saw him take a seat beside me or felt him brush against my shoulder.

Then he just made me feel unsafe, as if his presence at the bar would draw attention to me and the fact that I, too, whispered about confirmed bachelors in the barracks. He knew from the beginning - there was a little twitch at the corner of his mouth when I shook his hand, a smirk.

He was the one who approached me, of course. That night he watched my throat as I swallowed and his dark eyes went to my mouth as I lit his cigarette. His tongue touched his bottom lip, too red and too wet to be decent.

Every movement from the arc of his hand to the angle at which he sat made me aware of his body and of my own. And it made me afraid. He cast his long, black lashes down and blew his smoke in my face. When I coughed, he laughed.

He disturbed and disgusted me. What perversions had he done in private? What under the sun had he not tried? I imagined the beautiful deaths he had given so other men. The efficiency of his hands. The sharpness of his mind. At night I laid awake, as I hated him and wanted him in equal, excruciating measure.

It took only the smell of aloe to arouse me, to remind me of his unblemished skin. Even his sweat tasted sweet. Thunder reminded me of him, and shoe polish, and cigarettes. Years later I could see him in the blue light of smoke and lightning. I could see the reflection of my face in his black leather boots. I couldn’t touch myself without him behind my half-lidded eyes.

Some horrible part of me dreamed of tearing him open and crawling inside, of shoving him under my skin, of living as him and in him forever. No one else could have him and feel that special weakness I felt for him.

But I never could keep him. I never could, and I was never going to be able to forget him. He made sure of that.


End file.
